Analysis: For Japan, entertainment like anime, manga, and video games are the embodiment of soft power
Summer 2025 saw a stacked lineup of high profile, major franchise cinema releases. Marvel and DC both returned to the multiplex with Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman, while Brad Pitt and director Joseph Kosinski ushered Formula One onto cinema screens with the Apple-produced F1. Despite the (relative) successes of each of these films, one summer film implausibly dominated the season.
That film was Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle Pt 1, the latest in popular anime Demon Slayer, and the beginning of a trilogy of films intended to finish the franchise. However, with a global box office haul of nearly 700 million USD, it is doubtful that this franchise is finishing anytime soon. Earlier instalment, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Mugen Train, ended 2020 as the second highest grossing film of its year. The success of Demon Slayer is remarkable, but it is also indicative of the newfound buying power of anime.
Anime, or Japanese animation, has always had a certain cultural cache, but recent years have exacerbated this. Part of this is down to the Covid-19 years, wherein streaming services acquired rights to legacy series and financed new anime. With viewers stranded at home, series like Demon Slayer (available via Netflix), Jujutsu Kaisen (Netflix, Crunchyroll), and Bleach (Disney Plus) all exploded in popularity.
From Crunchyroll, The official Chainsaw Man trailer
Anime is also much easier to access now than it was in years past, with cinema releases of anime films now the norm across Ireland, Europe, and America. This is partially because anime is financially attractive in a world where Hollywood blockbusters are progressively and prohibitively expensive to produce. Compare the budget of F1 to the latest Demon Slayer: the Brad Pitt vehicle cost an approximate 250 million USD, while Demon Slayer cost only 20 million USD. Now compare their box office hauls: F1 stands at 630 million USD, as Demon Slayer takes pole position with 660 million USD. It isn't all good news however: the low-budget, high-reward model is unevenly structured as animators are frequently overworked and underpaid.
The rest of year will see the wide release of further anime blockbusters here in Ireland: Chainsaw Man: The Movie – Reze Arc releases this week, while Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution will arrive in November. Meanwhile, rereleases of anime classics are a perennial presence in Irish cinemas – this year alone has seen Perfect Blue, Angel's Egg, and Wolf Children all return to screens.
It feels sacrilegious to even consider the box office earnings of film. Anyone who loves cinema will surely know to disengage a film’s profit margins from their own enjoyment of any given movie. However, there is a value in tracking and tracing box office trends. For example, the massive success of films such as The Super Marios Bros. Movie and Minecraft is indicative of a trend toward film adaptations of popular videogames (strap in for more videogame films: the coming years will see sequels to both of these, a reboot for Resident Evil, and more Silent Hill films).
Official trailer for Return to Silent hill
The mainstream success of anime and Japanese videogame properties (all the games mentioned above, save Minecraft, are Japanese) is an example of what scholar Roland Kelts terms Japan's 'soft power’. At a recent webinar for Temple University Japan, Kelts defined soft power as a country’s "ability to make friends and influence people, not through military might, but through its … culture, education, language and values. In short, it’s the things that make people love a country rather than fear it." For Japan, entertainment like anime, manga, and videogames are the embodiment of soft power. And this is visible here in Ireland: Penneys sell manga-themed pyjamas, the front page of Netflix proudly displays Studio Ghibli films, and Smyths held midnight openings for the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 earlier this year.
Despite the current trajectory of successful anime films, there are shadows on the horizon. The most successful anime films globally tend to adhere to one of three categories: they are produced by Studio Ghibli, they are directed by Makoto Shinkai, or they are adaptations of existing shonen properties. Studio Ghibli and Makoto Shinkai (director of acclaimed anime like Your Name and Suzume) are relatively safe bets for now, but the third category is worth exploring. Shonen, broadly meaning ‘boy’, refers mainly to action manga and anime targeted at a young male demographic. The most popular of these are, historically, published in the Japanese magazine Weekly Shonen Jump, the alumni of which includes Dragon Ball Z, Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, and Black Clover.
The general process is as follows: a manga is serialised in Jump. Chapters are released weekly and gradually attract a dedicated fanbase. After a suitable number of chapters have been released and volume sales prove the popularity of the manga, an anime adaptation is announced. Should this too succeed, film adaptations often follow.
The official trailer for Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution
However, many of the most popular contemporary shonen manga are finished or finishing: megahits Jujutsu Kaisen and My Hero Academia both ended in 2024, Demon Slayer ended in 2020, while Black Clover and Sakamoto Days are in their final arcs. Adaptations are rapidly catching up, too: only two films yet remain for Demon Slayer; My Hero Academia’s final season is currently airing; and Jujutsu Kaisen is expected to run for another two seasons (the first of which will begin in January 2026). Meanwhile, the likely successors to these, Kagurabachi and Ichi the Witch, have not yet been granted adaptations. This means that in the short-term, future anime may yet look backwards: recent years have seen the return of the Bleach anime, which originally stopped airing in 2012.
While anime in cinema currently enjoys its moment, expect Shonen Jump to look to the past in designing future hits: short-lived shonen manga Psyren (which serialised 2007-2010) is rumoured to return as an anime in 2026, perhaps opening the floodgates for adaptations of other older properties. My guess for the next of these: Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, an endearing action manga centred on Japanese folklore which was only partially adapted as an anime in 2010. These will serve to whet the appetite of anime enthusiasts as current hits mature to such a point that adaptation makes sense.
Follow RTÉ Brainstorm on WhatsApp and Instagram for more stories and updates
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
